Pluralistic Therapy

Pluralistic therapy is an approach in which you and your therapist work collaboratively to find which particular therapeutic approach works best with regards to your own lived experiences.

In this sense, pluralistic therapy is less rigorous than other approaches which seek to use a single model to assist you in overcoming your emotional difficulties.

Because everybody experiences their own lives and problems uniquely, therapy should be as flexible as possible when it comes to providing relief.

Consequently, pluralistic therapy actively seeks to engage you in a collaborative understanding of what might work most effectively for you.

Therefore, therapy sessions may include elements drawn from a number of different schools of thought which can be used as and when you and your therapist feel those approaches are most appropriate.

Joan is our pluralistic therapist here at Lee Psychology.

Therapeutic Equivalence

There is a growing body of evidence which suggests that the majority of different types of psychotherapy are largely equivalent in terms of effectiveness.

This research also argues that the relationship between you and therapist plays a more important role in achieving a good outcome than the type of therapy used.

Pluralistic therapy recognises that a good quality relationship in which you and therapist decide how the therapy ‘plays-out’ is likely to be more effective than the rigorous application of a single philosophical approach.

What this means is that a pluralistic therapy approach might involve elements drawn from:

• Psychodynamic therapy.
• Cognitive therapy.
• Behavioural therapy.
• Clinical Hypnosis.
• Solutions-focused therapy.
• Person-centred therapy.
• and so on.

The ability to move between different ideas and approaches means that pluralistic therapy can be highly flexible if one approach is not providing you with sufficient relief.

How Long Will it Last?

As with any course of psychotherapy, each person’s needs are going to be different and the length of therapy will vary according to the complexity of the presenting problems and the individual needs and goals of the client.

Although it is impossible to be prescriptive about the number of sessions that any client is likely to need, it is probably reasonable to expect somewhere in the region of 15 to 20 sessions (NICE guidelines tend to advocate for around 20 sessions).

Some clients may gain a sufficient amount of relief after only 7 or 8 sessions whilst others may find more than 20 is needed to feel more resolved.

The key determinant of therapy length in pluralistic therapy is probably gauged by how the client feels in themselves.

They are, afterall, experts in their own feelings!